The White Ribbon Runs the Red Lights - Blake Michael Nelson - Part of his Signalverse series of short superhero novels. I saw a recommendation for this series from Lawrence Watt Evans and decided to check it out. This book appealed to me most, so I picked it up - most of the books are standalones. I enjoyed it - the main character is Skirmish, the martial-arts trained sidekick to an established hero who has left him on his own for the next several weeks. Skirmish gets involved with a murder plot, a series of thefts and disappearances, and deals with the ancient assassin cult that trained him in his boyhood. He also meets the White Ribbon,. quickly revealed to be one of his schoolmates. They have a rough and rocky start but reluctantly team up to solve the various mysteries.
I really liked it. The worldbuilding is pretty impressive as well - I felt as if I knew this world without any infodumping or monologues. These novels are short so the pacing is brisk, and not one word is wasted, but both characters and plot are rich enough that it still feels like you had a complete experience.
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